Searching With Singapore Airlines

Singapore Krisflyer has separate award charts for flights on Singapore Airlines only and for flights with their Star Alliance partners. Generally, the best use of Singapore Krisflyer miles is for their own flights in business, first, or suites class. Another good option is partner award flights within North or South America, including Hawaii and the Caribbean. Other options tend to either cost too many miles or charge too much in fuel surcharges to be competitive.

Award Chart: Flights on Singapore Airlines as well as Flights with Star Alliance and Flights with Non-Alliance Partners (incl. Alaska Airlines). Flights on non-alliance partners cannot be combined with flights on Star Alliance partners in a single award.Changes: FREE to change dates on Singapore Airlines flights and $20 per ticket for changes to routing or class of service (you’ll pay the difference in miles for upgrades). A $25 fee is added for any service that is done over the phone if it could have been accomplished online.Cancellations: $30 to cancel and redeposit your miles. The same $25 fee mentioned above potentially applies here too.Close-In Booking Fees: None.Stopovers and Open-Jaws: One stopover and one open-jaw for round-trip awards (intra-Europe and within/between United States/Canada/Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Islands are excluded). Up to three stopovers can be added to an award (even a one-way award) for $100 each.Fuel Surcharges: Yes, but none on a) Singapore/Silkair awards, b) Air New Zealand, Avianca, and Copa, nor c) partner awards within North and South America. Fuel surcharges on LOT Polish can be low also.Sweet Spots: Singapore Airlines flights in Business/First/Suites Class. Alaska Airlines flights in Economy Class (between most of their destinations in the U.S., Canada, and Central America). Flights within North America (including Hawaii) in Business/First Class or to Southern South America in Business Class. Also note that Hawaii, Central America, and the Caribbean are all considered to be within the same zone, so travel between these regions can be relatively cheap as well.

Review your results, and select the flight you are considering. You can also edit your search or view results on the next or previous day.As of December 7, 2017, there is now the option to show flights for Star Alliance or Other Partner airlines.

The Booking summary in the top right will update with the cost in miles plus any taxes and fuel surcharges.

(Optional) If you are searching one way or one segment at a time, repeat this process for any other legs of your trip and assemble them into a single trip.

Select your flights and complete your booking.

Suites Class

One of the most fun ways to redeem Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles is for awards in Singapore Suites.

To fly Singapore Suites, you need to pay only for a first class award, but it must be on a route flying the Airbus A380. In other words, on an A380, first class is an enclosed suite. Singapore’s routes that fly an A380 are shown in the table below. The reverse direction (i.e. return trip) for of all these options does as well. Make sure to check the plane details when booking because they will sometimes fly other planes on these routes and will offer you those options as well.

Origin

Destination

Miles

New York

Frankfurt

86,000

Singapore

Auckland

85,000

Beijing

53,000

Frankfurt

125,000

Hong Kong

40,500

London

125,000

Mumbai

53,000

New Delhi

53,000

Paris

125,000

Shanghai

53,000

Sydney

85,000

Zurich

125,000

Searching With United Airlines

If you are booking an award with Star Alliance partner airlines rather than on Singapore Airlines directly, you may still want to search following the steps at Searching With United Airlines. Although Singapore Airlines has now added the option to search for and book Star Alliance partner awards online, the interface is still a bit clunky. Ultimately, you may want to go back to Singapore Airlines to book your flights to avoid the $25 phone booking fee. Otherwise, you can call Singapore Airlines at (800) 742-3333 to complete your booking over the phone.

Searching With Alaska Airlines

Similarly, if you are booking an award with Alaska Airlines, you might prefer to use their own award search rather than Singapore’s to find availability. Again, you will either have to go back to Singapore’s website to book the flights you found or call Singapore Airlines at (800) 742-3333 and pay the $25 phone booking fee.

Advanced Tips & Tricks

Waitlisting Awards Before Booking Your Flight – If you’ve found award availability, but the option presented to you is not your ideal choice, consider waitlisting awards for other itineraries that you prefer. Waitlisting Singapore awards is free, but you must have enough miles in your account to book your award. Since no miles are deducted when you waitlist, this means that you can waitlist as many awards as you like prior to booking your non-ideal option that has availability. Should availability come up via waitlist on a more ideal routing in the future, you can then change your itinerary to your preferred one. Note that waitlisted awards are automatically canceled if they do not clear within fourteen days of the departure date.

Finding Extra Award Availability by Adding Segments – If you’re searching for an award, especially to Singapore, and cannot find any available seats in your class of choice, try adding another segment to your trip (e.g. search for LAX-NRT-SIN-HKG rather than just LAX-NRT-SIN). Oddly enough, it appears that Singapore reserves some extra seats for people connecting in Singapore rather than selecting it as their final destination. This doesn’t help, of course, if you intend to actually visit Singapore, unless you can carry on all of your bags and skip the last segment.